


Valuing Your Assets

by sarcasticsra



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-30
Updated: 2011-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-24 04:43:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasticsra/pseuds/sarcasticsra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mutual understanding goes a long way in this business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valuing Your Assets

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the beta, Kelly.

Save a guy’s life four or five times in the same day and it tends to alter your relationship. Even if, beforehand, you’d been, oh, about to destroy each other, it changes things a little. Nine times out of ten, they’re going to be grateful, which makes it hard to hold a grudge, or hang onto blackmail materials. That’s the nature of this line of work: people who were once a major pain in your ass can become loyal (and useful) assets in the span of a few hours. Sometimes all it takes is being held hostage in a bank robbery.

“I always knew you had style, Michael,” Bly says, entering the loft without a knock. His arm is patched and in a sling, and instead of an irritating, smarmy smirk on his face, he’s wearing a genuine, if slight, smile. “But that...that was something.”

This is his way of thanking me. Bly may have dropped the smarm, but the man isn’t about to go groveling at my feet. I’m fine with that, and I acknowledge it with a nod, standing up and meeting him in the middle of the room. He takes a step closer to me, and we’re very clearly in each other’s personal space. Neither of us makes any move to change that.

We’re on the edge again, but that’s one aspect of our relationship that hasn’t been turned on its head. We’ve been here before, precariously balancing on that line between tension and action, teasing and doing. Spies especially know a lot about this particular line. We know when to avoid it, when to toe it, when to straddle it, and, most importantly, when to cross it with confidence.

Bly and I have never crossed it before. We’ve blurred the hell out of it, obscured it, pretended it didn’t exist (while remembering that it did), but we’ve stayed on our respective sides, knowing where we belonged. Our interactions grew more personal, and with that came the heat, the tension, the line serving as another divider, this time between passionate anger and just plain passion.

“Your arm,” I say, and he gives a half-shrug, good arm reaching out so that his hand rests on my arm, fingers curling around my bicep. We’re standing close enough that he doesn’t have to reach very far.

“It’ll be fine,” he answers, gaze flitting to where he’s touching me, and my eyes follow his. I know damn well what it’s saying—rather, what it’s offering—and he knows that I understand.

“You know, if this ever got out...” I start, and he snorts, a slight hint of his persona’s smarminess creeping back into his eyes.

“Were you planning on discussing this with someone? Sam, maybe? Or, I know—Fiona.”

I grimace, briefly imagining their reactions. “Not exactly.”

“Then I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

He doesn’t add an ‘anymore’ to that sentence, but I hear it just the same. That’s another reason we never got this far before: we didn’t trust each other as far as we could throw one another. Situations like this can be turned around and used as leverage so easily. Crossing that line involves trust—the kind of trust that evolves, let’s say, after you’ve been in a life-threatening situation together.

“Good point,” I reply, and our eyes meet again.

In a little while— _after_ —Bly will tell me what he knows about the bank account I asked him for information on, proving his usefulness, his loyalty. We’ll part on a handshake: once, determined, bitter enemies, now, if not exactly friends, then at least two people who understand each other.

Sometimes, in this line of work, that’s all you can really ask for.

For me, it’s more than enough.


End file.
